'Language-Gap Barrier Bolsters a Push For Pre-K'

[Dick Whitman]

It always astounds me how wide the gap is between the number of words that children of educated children hear compared to how many that children of less educated people hear. I don't understand it, frankly. I've been around both educated and non-educated people. Educated people don't seem to talk less, and this is a study about sheer volume, not use of big words or lines of reasoning:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/us/language-gap-study-bolsters-a-push-for-pre-k.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

Bottom line? Another in a long line of evidence that pre-K, which here would help make up the ground that children lose because of their apparently strong-but-silent-type parents, is a vital component of any education reform plans.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Gracias, mods.

 

[Here me roar]

I wonder if better-educated parents use fewer 'baby words' to their babies and toddlers than un/undereducated parents? Could that be part of the discrepancy? We've all seen the people while addressing a three, four year old and talk like this "oh, what's a matter wif your fing-fing. Does ooh have a boo boo?"

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I wonder if better-educated parents use fewer 'baby words' to their babies and toddlers than un/undereducated parents? Could that be part of the discrepancy? We've all seen the people while addressing a three, four year old and talk like this "oh, what's a matter wif your fing-fing. Does ooh have a boo boo?"

I think a lot of it comes down to reading to your kids. We read to our kids all the time and they can't get enough of books. It's kind of sad that a lot of people just don't read to their kids anymore.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I wonder if better-educated parents use fewer 'baby words' to their babies and toddlers than un/undereducated parents? Could that be part of the discrepancy? We've all seen the people while addressing a three, four year old and talk like this "oh, what's a matter wif your fing-fing. Does ooh have a boo boo?"

I think a lot of it comes down to reading to your kids. We read to our kids all the time and they can't get enough of books. It's kind of sad that a lot of people just don't read to their kids anymore.

Interesting observation. I read 2-3 books a night to my son, and he begs for more, then looks at them after I leave the room. I'm not expecting a medal for father of the year or anything. I thought it was pretty standard. The biggest threat we can make to get him to brush teeth, change into pajamas, take a bath, etc., is "no stories unless ..."

 

[Bob Cook]

The children of educated parents also probably come from families with the money to afford all sorts of early educational development, from parents-and-tots classes to, heck, taking outings to the zoo.

 

[Dick Whitman]

The children of educated parents also probably come from families with the money to afford all sorts of early educational development, from parents-and-tots classes to, heck, taking outings to the zoo.

Yeah, but talking to your kids is free.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

It's not as standard as it should be. I read to my kids and my 7-year-old reads to my 5-year-old. They both read on their own before they go to bed. The school also mandates that they read 20-30 minutes a night and we make that the first thing they do when they get to the YMCA after school.

My oldest will go grab my Kindle Fire and go to the library website and pick which book he wants me to read. It's pretty cool...

 

[amraeder]

I wonder if better-educated parents use fewer 'baby words' to their babies and toddlers than un/undereducated parents? Could that be part of the discrepancy? We've all seen the people while addressing a three, four year old and talk like this "oh, what's a matter wif your fing-fing. Does ooh have a boo boo?"

I think a lot of it comes down to reading to your kids. We read to our kids all the time and they can't get enough of books. It's kind of sad that a lot of people just don't read to their kids anymore.

Reading to your kids is huge. Of course, not every kid comes from literate parents.
When I was getting my teaching certification, I remember being told about the huge discrepancy between the vocabulary sizes of children from poor and affluent families. I can't remember the exact number of words different, but it was in the thousands by the time they entered Kindergarten. I want to say, on average, poor students had a vocabulary around half the size of their more affluent peers. That's starting from behind the 8 ball.

 

[amraeder]

The children of educated parents also probably come from families with the money to afford all sorts of early educational development, from parents-and-tots classes to, heck, taking outings to the zoo.

Yeah, but talking to your kids is free.

It's not without an opportunity cost. A single-parent who has to work long hours to support their kid is going to have less time to talk to the kid than the family with a stay-at-home parent.

 

[Dick Whitman]

The children of educated parents also probably come from families with the money to afford all sorts of early educational development, from parents-and-tots classes to, heck, taking outings to the zoo.

Yeah, but talking to your kids is free.

It's not without an opportunity cost. A single-parent who has to work long hours to support their kid is going to have less time to talk to the kid than the family with a stay-at-home parent.

I wonder if there's a vocabulary gap between children with working moms and children with stay-at-home moms. Is having a working mom the same disadvantage as having a single mom? Should it matter? The children are presumably still with an adult all day.

 

[amraeder]

The children of educated parents also probably come from families with the money to afford all sorts of early educational development, from parents-and-tots classes to, heck, taking outings to the zoo.

Yeah, but talking to your kids is free.

It's not without an opportunity cost. A single-parent who has to work long hours to support their kid is going to have less time to talk to the kid than the family with a stay-at-home parent.

I wonder if there's a vocabulary gap between children with working moms and children with stay-at-home moms. Is having a working mom the same disadvantage as having a single mom? Should it matter? The children are presumably still with an adult all day.

Presumably. Someone providing free daycare for 5 neighborhood kids might not provide the same amount of quality interactions as a high-quality daycare.

 

[Here me roar]

The children of educated parents also probably come from families with the money to afford all sorts of early educational development, from parents-and-tots classes to, heck, taking outings to the zoo.

Yeah, but talking to your kids is free.

It's not without an opportunity cost. A single-parent who has to work long hours to support their kid is going to have less time to talk to the kid than the family with a stay-at-home parent.

I wonder if there's a vocabulary gap between children with working moms and children with stay-at-home moms. Is having a working mom the same disadvantage as having a single mom? Should it matter? The children are presumably still with an adult all day.

I doubt it. I think that steers into the education gap, though not necessarily. Lower income moms who work multiple jobs/have no time/no books in the house vs. college educated women with one good job and lots of books in the house...obviously, there's a whole spectrum in there. There are lots of houses without books.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I would be curious if having a stay at home parent makes much of a difference. I don't know... I have relatives who are stay-at-home parents and there is no way their kids read or do artwork or get outside the way kids who are in a good daycare do. Our daycare would read to them every day and then we'd do the same at night and my kids have had reading as part of their everyday life for as long as they can remember.

Obviously, it's not always like that.

 

[Bob Cook]

More than likely, the uneducated parents had uneducated parents themselves, and don't know inherently that talking to their kids and reading to them is going to give them a leg up. The educated parents might not know that inherently, either, but they do know that's what their parents did with them. My kids' high school has a wide range of education levels, and draws from one particularly poor community, so a lot of time is spent explaining stuff you know already if you went to college (such as, the grades start counting now for college), but would likely have no idea if you didn't, or didn't know people who did.

 

[waterytart]

I would be curious if having a stay at home parent makes much of a difference. I don't know... I have relatives who are stay-at-home parents and there is no way their kids read or do artwork or get outside the way kids who are in a good daycare do. Our daycare would read to them every day and then we'd do the same at night and my kids have had reading as part of their everyday life for as long as they can remember.

Obviously, it's not always like that.

I'm a SAHM, so whenever a new study on this is reported, I pay attention (though not with the rigor quant gave to the one about spanking.) Repeatedly, the findings are very close for the children of engaged mothers and those in high-quality daycare. The children score somewhat differently on individual components, because some are benefitting from better socialization and the others from increased one-on-one attention, but their overall performance is usually a toss-up.

I've never seen a study comparing negligent SAHMs with poor daycare; not sure how you'd set that up.

More than likely, the uneducated parents had uneducated parents themselves, and don't know inherently that talking to their kids and reading to them is going to give them a leg up. The educated parents might not know that inherently, either, but they do know that's what their parents did with them. My kids' high school has a wide range of education levels, and draws from one particularly poor community, so a lot of time is spent explaining stuff you know already if you went to college (such as, the grades start counting now for college), but would likely have no idea if you didn't, or didn't know people who did.

Our school district is 90% middle and upper-middle class, with a pocket of poor families. I know from volunteering at the elementary school that some of those kids arrive in kindergarten not recognizing their shapes and colors. That's something any non-mentally impaired 5-year-old can understand, but they need parents who know that it should have been taught already.

Extrapolate from something that fundamental across all the different pieces of knowledge the privileged child will acquire naturally and you end up with a huge discrepancy, including the vocabulary words "extrapolate" and "discrepancy."

 

[Dick Whitman]

I know from volunteering at the elementary school that some of those kids arrive in kindergarten not recognizing their shapes and colors.

That is astounding. I don't know that I've even tried to teach my son shapes and colors. It naturally occurs because, well, you have to describe ****.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I know from volunteering at the elementary school that some of those kids arrive in kindergarten not recognizing their shapes and colors.

That is astounding. I don't know that I've even tried to teach my son shapes and colors. It naturally occurs because, well, you have to describe ****.

Is your kid in day care?

 

[Dick Whitman]

I know from volunteering at the elementary school that some of those kids arrive in kindergarten not recognizing their shapes and colors.

That is astounding. I don't know that I've even tried to teach my son shapes and colors. It naturally occurs because, well, you have to describe ****.

Is your kid in day care?

Yes. There's also his mom, my wife, the elementary school robo-teacher who probably taught him some of that. But it seems astounding to me that a kid wouldn't know his colors by elementary school. Don't they use crayons?

 

[waterytart]

I know from volunteering at the elementary school that some of those kids arrive in kindergarten not recognizing their shapes and colors.

That is astounding. I don't know that I've even tried to teach my son shapes and colors. It naturally occurs because, well, you have to describe ****.

They would know red/blue/yellow/black/white. After that, it was a crapshoot. For some reason, green was better recognized than orange.

They would know circle and, usually, square. A triangle was unlikely, and a diamond (which is now a rhombus) was unheard of.

Obviously, this is a small sample. It's just what I saw.